Watching show on A&E about the Bible
 

Man... this is more entertaining than GFY.

So - I've attended church a handful of times but never really read the bible.

Check this...

One story, Sarah and Abraham tried to have a child but couldn't. They assumed that Sarah was not fertile and she felt guilty about this. Since it was her job to give her husband a child, to make it right Sarah hired a woman (a concubine) which was actually a slave of theirs to bare a child for Abraham.

the slave gives birth to Hagar - and then some time later Sarah gives birth to a boy. Issac. They decide to cast the first child and the slave mother out of the house.

I don't know what the moral of the story was... but I think that was the same plot as last week's Jerry Springer.



Another biblical story they repeated... was some guy's brother died. His father sent the brother to bed the widow - - to produce a son for his dead brother. The Guy didn't feel right about having a kid that would pass on his brother's name. and so every night before having sex with the new wife... he would drop his "seed" on the ground ....

A&E says that this pissed off God and God had him killed (i think he gave him some illness).


I like this... I need to get the Hollywood Revised Version of the Bible.

These fucks from the Christian Right Wing that would close down porn... need to re-read the bible !

You mean the The Bible - as interpreted by Extreme Associates.

Back in the old days before the VCR this was how much of the porn was made. They had to pretend that there was some sort of artistic merit to it. "The oddessy" starring John Holmes and Tracy Lords.


It doesn't do any good. They just ignore the parts they don't like or else tell you that THEY know what god REALLY ment and you don't.

Read the Book of Mormon You will have a great time in there.....

Ahh, yeah, The Bible. Always great for a good hearty chuckle.

There are many stories like this in the bible.

There's incest, rape, murder, betrayal...yep it's all in there.

In fact there's a book you can buy I think it's called "The X-rated Bible," that pretty much highlights all of the dirty parts.

What you have to consider tho' is that these are a book of stories passed down from generation to generation and were written to be morality plays or for inspiration..much like Greek Mythology etc.

And if you consider when the stories first originated there were few educated people so the stories were passed to each other until they reached someone who could put them down and what you get is the "telephone game."

You know the game where you tell the first kid in a circle of 30 a story and by the time it gets to the last kid the whole thing is changed...blown out of proportion etc. or Jesus walking on wateer.

I kinda think it's the same thing here...and then let's not even get into translations and censorship.

In one story of the Bible I think it's the prophet Elijah who has a bible version of a wwf smackdown with some of the priests of baal.
Anyway Elijah challenged these priests to have their god consume their sacrifical offering in fire...well as they waited Elijah asks the priests (paraphrasing here)"Where is your god...on the toilet?"
King James Version changed it to: "Where is your god...walking in the garden."

Ever heard of the Apocrypha?

No? Well it's 13 books that the church decided you shouldn't read.
These books were written by authors of other books of the bible, disciples of Christ etc.
One famous one is the Book of Thomas.
Anyway the church....in fact the Catholic church felt that these books when written were not influenced by God or the Holy Spirit so should not be included.

So who the hell really knows what we're supposed to believe.

I myself believe in a God a higher power...I refuse to believe this was all one big cosmic accident...we just happened to hit the biggest fucking jackpot ever...that all the elements necessary to not only form this world but to create life on it just happened to meet...anyway I digress.

What I don't believe in is man's ability to keep personal and political beliefs out of anything including his/her religion...and when the Bible was finally published or is updated in more recent publishings or "translations," there was and will continue to be a little added input.

eros

I was an accident.

You can also find if you look in the right places, that King James was bi-sexual.. :)
and in the original manuscripts, Mary was referred to as amah, which means 'young woman' not virgin, so that knocks a hole in the Virgin Mary story....

The concubine's name is Hagar. The child's name is Ishmael. He is traditionally viewed as the forefather of the Arabs whereas Isaac is the forefather of the Jews.

There is an Asian version of this. If a sibling cannot have children, a married sibling will have a child and give the child to the childless sibling. The kid will never be told who its real parent is. This is practiced in some parts of India, Korea, and probably other parts of Asia as well.

Nobody believes we hit a big "jackpost"... at least, thinkers don't. The probability, though, is that we evolved over the millenia into our current state. Whether it all started from singularity with the big bang, or some other explanation is actually the case, the world we live in right now is the product of ages of gradual change and adaptation.

If you believe a God one day decided, "Hey, I think I'm gonna create a world and put some little 2-legged creatures on it," then what do you propose was here before he made that decision? Who created this God fella? My point is that no matter what you attribute Creation to, it's bound to run into logical fallacies.

God is an Iron!

Oh yeah and your evolution theory is based on less than 5% of the fossil record available.

I believe in evolution in that we grew and adapted, but not to the point that if a creature needed to fly that he would develope wings over a long period of time...or if a creature needed to breathe oxygen in water it would develope the necessary organs to do that as well.

And as far as it being a jackpot...that is exactly what it is...if it isn't then why haven't we found another planet that "evolved over the millenia into our current state."

Why were we so lucky?

Why would our world "evolve" to the point that the right mixture of carbodn dioxide and oxygen existed that our world would be ripe for our existence?

Or why would life evolve to the point that it wouldn't matter what the mixture was that life would survive and once again why has that not happened on other planets?

No...we're all just pretty damn lucky aren't we?

You can try and laugh off my beliefs...but until we die and come face to face with either nothingness or a creator neither one of us will ever know.

eros

Believing in God is silly. Religion is simply a tool use to keep peasents in line over the centuries. Some people still havent outgrown it. You think when NASA plans shuttle missions they worry about bumping into heaven?

God is a fairy tale. There is no evidence to support a "god". There's soo much "sin" nowadays that god would have rained down fire and brimstone on 98% of the cities on this planet.

The only higher power that created this planet is the same one the creates all the planets. As we learn more, we'll see that some planets have life, some dont. No big deal and nothing god-like about it.

Hey I'm not trying to convert anyone...but I will say this...better to be safe than sorry...LOL

So I choose to believe...what can it hurt?

BTW gary...I lost your ICQ# if you could hit me up it would be much appreciated.
127027910 re: xxxpaycheck.com etc.

Thx,
eros

Exactly, we'll never know. Evolution theory's not perfect, but it's a developing process... as opposed to religion, which is based on pure dogma and assumptions. Religion resists change... so if you can admit that we don't know, then aren't you also admitting that it's ridiculous to base beliefs on dogma?


As for the "better safe than sorry" argument, that's Pascall's Wager. Pascall said that you could break things down into 4 possibilities: I can believe in god, and be right. I can believe in god and be wrong. I can refuse to believe in God and be right.. or wrong. If there turns out to be no god, there's no loss or gain in either case. If there does turn out to be a God, though, the believer will hit the jackpot, while the non-believe faces disaster. So by using the comparison to gambling, he shows that the best odds are in belief. I think this has become the most common defense for religion.

Now here are the problems with that: there CAN be harm in believing (no 2 dogmas can ever coexist without conflict, persecution, etc). The largest harm in believing is that belief rules out other possibilities. When we one day learn the truth, there will be massive resistance, and the truth will be withheld by the religious right. To me, anything other than an enlightened open-minded society is harmful.

And anyway, the entire Wager is based on bad logic, because there are other factors that it doesn't consider... for instance, say I choose to believe in a God... well, which do I choose? I don't know of a single religion which believes that practicioners of other religions will go to their heaven. They all have their "false idol" commandments. Even different denominations of the same religions can be at odds over HOW to believe.

So, not only do you have to believe in God, but you have to choose the right one out of thousands. Doesn't the vastly reduce the odds?

Simply the most logical theory. :thumbsup

how do we have proof he or she does not exists tho?

round up a totally random 5% of all americans and ask them what they think of just about anything and you'll be ridiculously close to what ALL americans think about something.. FYI 16 people is the minimum number for a statistical representation.

a low percentage of a fossil record is only a problem if each fossil contradicts another one.. if they all point to the same thing (which they do) then it's pretty well a certainty.



theres no difference between small adaptations like fur or whatever and large adaptations like wings - there are just more steps for larger ones (obviously)



our world didn't "evolve" and there is no "right" mixture... the carbon dioxide to oxygen ratio is constantly changing.. i happen to believe that evolution is an inevitable occurance once an atmosphere becomes non-toxic to potential organic molecules.

and though i don't believe we'll find intelligent life any time in the forseeable future, basic organisms such as our own archaea and thermophiles and what not will be found throughout the universe on planets that are capable of sustaining them.

ps. theres an interesting theory about the transition from non-organic replicators to organic replicators i'll have to post when if i can find it or be bothered typing out...

Y'all are going straight to HELL!!

http://redshu.com/images/bac/bac-top-logo-01.gif

Bhutrocracy: exactly right.

If anybody doubts the possibility of birds evolving until they could fly, think about the wide variety of birds on our planet. Some can't fly at all, others have wings that will carry them just a short distance to get over obstacles, and others can fly at will.